Comment author: turchin 05 October 2016 08:28:15PM *  2 points [-]

My thoughts:

  1. Google has (is) the biggest computer program = 3 bln lines of code

  2. Google has world biggest database, including Youtube, 23andme, Gmail, Google books, all internet content

  3. Google is the world biggest computer, which includes something like 1 per cent of total world computing power

  4. Google did most impressive AI demonstartion recently that is win in Go.

  5. Google is clearly interested in creating AI.

  6. Google has AI safety protocol.

  7. Google has money to buy needed parts, including people.

So it looks like Google is in winning position. How may be its main competitors? Military AIs in NSA. Other large companies.

Comment author: username2 06 October 2016 09:07:26PM 1 point [-]

Google has AI safety protocol.

Citation?

Comment author: entirelyuseless 06 October 2016 01:12:09PM 1 point [-]

I doubt there is much motivation here for "at least 20 years" except the very fact that it is hard to tell what will happen in 20 years.

I agree with Robin Hanson that we are maybe 5% of the way to general AI. I think 20 years from now the distance we were from AI at this point will be somewhat clearer (because we will be closer, but still very distant.)

Comment author: username2 06 October 2016 09:06:18PM *  2 points [-]

I agree with Robin Hanson that we are maybe 5% of the way to general AI.

On what basis do you say that?

Comment author: Brillyant 05 October 2016 07:02:37PM -1 points [-]

The problem is that the statistics don't show the claimed bias. Normalized on a per-police-encounter basis, white cops (or cops-in-general) don't appear to shoot black suspects more often than they shoot white suspects. However, police interact with black people more frequently, so the absolute proportion of black shooting victims is elevated.

Can you provide any sources for this?

The fact that the incidence of police encounters with blacks is elevated would be the actual social problem worth addressing, but the reasons for the elevated incidence of police-black encounters do not make a nice soundbite.

Is the incidence of police encounters with blacks elevated?

What are the reasons?

Comment author: username2 05 October 2016 07:30:28PM 0 points [-]

Source: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399

What are the reasons? Well, beginning with the discovery of the North American continent 1492 ...

Comment author: Brillyant 05 October 2016 02:41:26PM *  -1 points [-]

Interesting rhetorical sparring point taking place in the U.S. election that relates to rationality here at LW.

In the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton referenced bias when discussing the recent spate of police shootings of African Americans. Clinton said “implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police,” and went on to say “I think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other," and “I think we need all of us to be asking hard questions about, ‘why am I feeling this way?’”

In the VP debate last night, again in the context of recent police shootings, Dem candidate Tim Kaine said, "People shouldn't be afraid to bring up issues of bias in law enforcement. And if you're afraid to have the discussion, you'll never solve it."

Clinton/Kaine have predictably drawn criticism from the Red Team for the comments (who try to paint the Blue Team as anti-police), but it seems to me the Dems have been more defensive than they need to be, given it seems obvious to me (from my time at LW) that humans are biased, and this bias would obviously be likely to play a role in high stress situations (like when guns are involved).

It will be interesting to me to see how this is adjudicated according to public opinion. Do people generally accept everyone has biases and of course this would affect police officers in high stress situations? Or do they view bias as a rare condition that only affects people without the proper virtue? Is this argument actually over different definitions of the word "bias"? Is it just a Red v. Blue argument that has little to do with facts?

I, for one, think Kaine and Clinton's comments were correct and made a very salient point. (But I'm biased against Trump.)

Comment author: username2 05 October 2016 06:16:23PM *  8 points [-]

The problem is that the statistics don't show the claimed bias. Normalized on a per-police-encounter basis, white cops (or cops-in-general) don't appear to shoot black suspects more often than they shoot white suspects. However, police interact with black people more frequently, so the absolute proportion of black shooting victims is elevated.

The fact that the incidence of police encounters with blacks is elevated would be the actual social problem worth addressing, but the reasons for the elevated incidence of police-black encounters do not make a nice soundbite.

None of this is important of course because, as is usual for politics, the whole mess degenerates into cheerleading for your team and condemning the other team, and sensitive analysis of the actual evidence would be giving aid and comfort to the hated enemy.

Comment author: Manfred 04 October 2016 07:06:49PM *  3 points [-]

The AI has to do what humans mean (rather than e.g. not following your orders and just calculating more digits of pi) before you start talking at it, because you are relying on it interpreting that sentence how you meant it.

The hard part is not figuring out good-sounding words to say to an AI. The hard part is figuring out how to make an actual, genuine computer program that will do what you mean.

Comment author: username2 04 October 2016 08:33:17PM 0 points [-]

Maybe? But consider that the opposite of what you just claimed sounds just as plausible to an outside observer. "Do what I mean" doesn't sound all that complicated -- even to someone with a background in computer science or AI specifically. "Do what I mean" translates as "accurately determine the principles which constrain my own actions and use those to constrain the AI's, or otherwise build a model of my thinking which the AI can use to evaluate options." Sub-goals such as verifying that the model matches reality fall easily out of this definition.

It's not at all clear, even to a practitioner within the field, that this expansion doesn't work, if in fact it does not.

Comment author: siIver 03 October 2016 06:47:33PM 1 point [-]

Every emotion is in your head only, so that's not useful advise. The same argument could be made for virtually every form of social insecurity.

If I may ask -- you are the same registered user who made the initial comment. Why reply to yourself? Are you multiple people using the same account?

Comment author: username2 04 October 2016 07:09:47AM 0 points [-]

I'm the same username2 you are responding to, but not the OP. Some emotions are "in your head" in the sense of being due to chemical and hormonal imbalances which you have limited non-pharmacological control over. Others are "in your head" in the sense that it is just neural software you were born with, but can be rewritten. Embarrassment is the latter.

Comment author: Houshalter 03 October 2016 07:26:35PM *  4 points [-]

This seems as useful as telling depressed people to stop being depressed. Fear of embarrassment is one of the strongest drives humans have. Probably appearing to be a fool in the ancestral environment led to fewer mates or less status. It's not something you can just voluntarily turn off or push through easily.

The best strategy, I think, would be to work around it. Convince your brain that it's not embarrassing. Or that no one cares. Or pretend no one is watching. Or do it around supportive friends.

Comment author: username2 04 October 2016 07:05:24AM *  2 points [-]

It's not something you can just voluntarily turn off or push through easily.

Actually, it is (sample size of 1). I used to be frightful of social circumstances because of fear of embarrassment. I really did get entirely over it just by saying to myself "Self, this is ridiculous. Stop being embarrassed." Pure willpower can do amazing things. Unlike depression there isn't a pharmacological effect going on here. You aren't embarrassed because of some chemical imbalance. You're embarrassed because you allow yourself to be. It is entirely mental.

Convince your brain that it's not embarrassing. Or that no one cares.

That's essentially what I'm saying to do.

EDIT: I should say however that there are a few cases where anti-anxiety medication can help. For most people however this is not the issue.

Comment author: username2 03 October 2016 12:08:16PM 4 points [-]

How do you deal with embarrassment of having to learn as an adult things that most people learn in their childhood? I'm talking about things that you can't learn alone in private, such as swimming, riding a bicycle and things like that.

Comment author: username2 03 October 2016 12:27:40PM 0 points [-]

Please forgive the snarky response but... Don't be embarrassed. Embarrassment is in your head only.

Comment author: username2 03 October 2016 12:08:16PM 4 points [-]

How do you deal with embarrassment of having to learn as an adult things that most people learn in their childhood? I'm talking about things that you can't learn alone in private, such as swimming, riding a bicycle and things like that.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 02 October 2016 04:06:55PM 0 points [-]

That's fine. As far as I can see you have corrected your mistaken view, even though you do have the usual human desire not to admit that you have done so, even though such a correction is a good thing, not a bad thing. Your statement would be true if you meant by infinite resources, the ability to execute an infinite number of statements, and complete that infinite process. In the same way it would be true that we could solve the halting problem, and resolve the truth or falsehood of every mathematical claim. But in fact you meant that if you have unlimited resources in a more practical sense: unlimited memory and computing speed (it is evident that you meant this, since when I stipulated this you persisted in your mistaken assertion.) And this is not enough, without the software knowledge that we do not have.

Comment author: username2 03 October 2016 04:14:54AM *  -2 points [-]

Sorry, no, you seem to have completely missed the minimax aspect of the problem -- an infinite integral with a weight that limits to zero has finitely bounded solutions. But it is not worth my time to debate this. Good day, sir.

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